Yuga

A Yuga is one of four successive ages — Satya, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali — that together form a Mahayuga or Chaturyuga cycle of 4,320,000 years. Each Yuga is characterized by a progressive decline in dharma, virtue, and human lifespan, with Satya Yuga being the golden age and Kali Yuga being the age of spiritual darkness. Hindu tradition holds that we currently live in Kali Yuga, which began after the Mahabharata war.

The Yugas represent the rhythmic expansion and contraction of consciousness within creation. As the cycle descends from Satya to Kali, the individual jiva experiences increasing identification with matter and forgetfulness of its divine nature. The sadhaka who understands the Yugas recognizes that spiritual practice in Kali Yuga, though more difficult, yields disproportionately greater merit precisely because of the prevailing darkness.

From the standpoint of Brahman, the Yugas are the play (lila) of time within maya — the apparent unfolding of multiplicity within the changeless Absolute. The entire Chaturyuga cycle, repeated a thousand times to form a single day of Brahma, reveals that even the vastest cosmological durations are but a fleeting appearance in the timeless awareness of the Self. The Yugas neither diminish nor enhance the ever-present reality of Atman.